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Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Last Train to Morristown

This past Saturday evening I made what might be my last trip to see a Morristown Theatre Guild production. Urinetown: The Musical was all I hoped it would be: community theatre at its best. Community theatre at its worst, however, insured that this show was likely to be the Guild's last big hurrah. At curtain call, a very emotional cast gave Micah-Shane a deserved here's-to-you speech, and the audience concurred with a three-minute standing ovation.

And now for thank you, five's first guest review by guest reviewer Howard Y. Haffner:

Morristown Theatre Guild’s production of Urinetown: The Musical demonstrates the strengths of Micah-Shane Brewer’s directing abilities and was well worth my drive from Knoxville. Brewer’s Urinetown: The Musical is an example of how a well thought-out production can bring great music and a great script to audiences outside of major metropolitan areas and get them to enjoy the theatre experience. It was a good sign when I sat down in the theatre before the show and the person behind me was discussing with someone that he typically doesn’t like musicals but he was back for a second time to see this show.

Before the show started various members of the chorus were gradually taking the stage clearly needing to use “Amenity #9” and falling asleep on the stage. Officer Barrel played by Ryan Hubbard then brought the members of the band out through the audience and then up to the stage parading them in their striped convict attire. He locks them in the cage where they will be playing. This was a somewhat funny but mostly strange way to open the show and was not an indication of the great show to come. Fortunately, the opening number "Urinetown" was fantastic and did a great job getting the audience excited for the rest of the show. The energy of the cast was high and stayed that way through the first act.

Michael DeMar gave a wonderful performance as Officer Lockstock and moved the show along very well with his comedic timing. His voice was a bit weak at the beginning of the show but strengthened through the performance. His side kick, Barrel, played along beside him perfectly and Hubbard’s physical comedy kept the audience laughing throughout the show. The highlight of watching these two characters came during the number “Cop Song” which was hilarious. Allison Perfetti’s choreography added to the comedy of this song and the dancing came across as very well rehearsed, more so than other parts of the show. DeMar and Hubbard owned this song and had wonderful timing. This song could have gone horribly wrong in a community theatre with the challenging pacing, dancing and complicated lyrics, but these two actors delivered a flawless performance.

Penelope Pennywise, played by Susan Christophel, was terrific. Christophel brought to mind the screen performance of Queen Latifah as Mama in Chicago. Blend of sass, bitchiness and compassion made it easy for her to gain the audience’s sympathy when she needed it and she still was able to portray the tough shell of a woman who has seen the harsher side of life.

Ed Cunningham developed the character of Caldwell B. Cladwell perfectly. He created a CEO who doesn’t know that he should be self-conscious which is perfect for a man that is so powerful that he controls the city’s population as well as the politicians. Sound issues once again detracted from this otherwise great performance. Cunningham’s songs “Mr. Cladwell” and “Don’t Be the Bunny” were fantastic.

One of the strongest characters in the show was Little Sally played by Allison Perfetti. She gave a fantastic performance from her stage presence and character voice to line delivery. She embraced the Annie type character wholeheartedly.

The chemistry between Bobby Strong, played by Adam Malone, and Hope Cladwell, played by Emily Powers, was evident in the song “Follow Your Heart” and this created a bit of a sweet aspect for this show. While the script won’t allow for a great love story, these two actors brought us enough of one to fulfill that need in a musical. Malone seemed to have a nice voice from what I could hear but there were some sound issues and it was difficult to actually hear him. The same could be said for Powers who had no trouble hitting her notes, but did have some trouble supporting those notes giving her vocal performance a weak quality. Powers did, however, do a fine job portraying the character’s silly, spoiled school girl nature. The sound quality was an issue for the entire show and has been a problem with the other three musicals that I have seen in this theatre. I am not sure if the production crew is fearful of blowing the theatre’s speakers or if the problem comes from a lack of skill in running a soundboard, but it seriously detracts from the otherwise strong productions done by the Guild.

Gary Greenlee and Brewer’s lighting design complimented this show perfectly and even though some of the actors were unable to stay in their light, it was some of the best lighting I have seen recently. Frank Williams and Brewer’s set design is also worth noting and I applaud them for choosing a simpler set which did not overpower the performance of the actors. The set was not particularly fussing and the changes were done with relatively little delay.

Overall, I am extremely pleased to have seen this production of Urinetown: the Musical and the Guild should be very proud of the excellent work that they did on it. I am always impressed when a director can tame a production as large and complicated as this one and bring it to life with few flaws. It is reported that due to the Guild’s financial problems, this is Brewer’s final production in Morristown. Let’s hope that a Knoxville theatre is wise enough to snap up this great director so that his excellent talents are not lost from East Tennessee. Job well done. Howard Y. Haffner8/21/06

3 Comments:

I, Gary Greenlee, only programed the board. Micah-shane set up most of the light cues. Tho I do thank you for your kinds words about the lights.

I will say this about the sound. It was a good as we could hope for with home steroeo speakers(front fill) with te house right blown, and an old gynasium speaker as the center fill. It was as good as it copuld be with set up at Walter's State. Honstly, with West Side Stroy, i blew the house right speaker. Also, instead of having a total of 12 possible mics, we only had 6. Yes half the mics (theater guild's shure PXG1 units) are supposidly "under repair". When I hooked all the stuff up, we had 10 of the 12 there. Then, 4 of the Shure units decided not to work, leaving us with only two of them, and four VEGA's that belong to Walter's State Community College.

I've heard rumors that WSCC is going to get a good system in there, but if it goes like the other "planned reonvations" it might take a while. Another thing with WSCC's sound system. they have the home stereo speakers and the gynasium speaker hooked up, but they have 2 Altech Lanzing 15" speakers over head, that was used for center low end fill. However, the former head of CETV there decided that the some speakers and the gym speaker were all they needed. I mean, they might be good for when theu just have people sepaking in there, but for live tehatre they just dont cust the mustard.

Of course, telling anyone that is not a sounds technician this is about as effective as tring to run a car on water.

Hi! I really loved this production! My husband, Lee, was the Musical Director for the show & the piano-playing convict in the cage! :-) We have been involved with the Theatre Guild for many years. We were both in the cast of last year's "Beauty and the Beast", as well as several other shows. Micah-Shane Brewer is one of the best directors we have ever worked with. Losing him will be a huge detriment to the Guild. However, keep giving theater in Morristown a chance. You never know what the future may hold! ;-)

Thursday, August 17, 2006

The State of Knoxville Theatre

As many of you likely saw, The Baron Von Wasteland posted this comment in thank you, five's recent KATC poll:

NO Awards--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The thought of the KATC awards staggering back to life is ridiculous.

The greatest impediment to theatre anywhere in the US is a distinct lack of respect for the purpose of theatre. The act of a performance must arouse the ineffable feeling of connection and moment that has remained unchanged since the greeks invented theatre as a way to connect to this heightened consciousness. A feeling so important they called it "the god"(Dionysus).

Most American actors are on stage for one thing: personal vanity. the proof of this vanity is easily seen by most actors actions. Actors do not cooperate or work together, they do not seek to bring truth or integrity to their performance, and they refuse to get far enough beyond their own fears to reach that point of connection when they seem witnesses to their performances rather than the authors of their performances.

Thus shows are dull, inept, and unispired. There is no semblence of art in what is on stage. It all, to paraphrase The Bard, "signifies nothing."

With all this in mind, the thought of an additional source of potential narcissism, the KATC awards, is the LAST thing this town needs to improve theatre. The reason all the infighting and pointless intrigues associated with the former KATCs occured was presisely because no one involved understood or respected what's truly important about theatre. Anyone who did understand what's important likely ignored the KATCs or just didn't participate.

So forget it. It you want accolades buy yourself a trophy and keep your self-adoration TO YOUR SELF. If you want to improve local theatre, and increase interest in same, get off your self-reverential ass, leave your ego at the door, and go create something worthy of the god.

(KATC, for those of you still wondering, stood for the Knoxville Area Theatre Coalition, a group whose main function was to deliver the KATC awards once a year in a drunken, Oscar-ly fashion.)

Okay, kids, let's discuss. The Baron does a LOT of generalizing here.

"Actors do not cooperate or work together." I find this ridiculous. If we don't work together, the play doesn't come together. I've rarely come across the actor who refuses to cooperate because his ego won't allow him to move from stage center. The directors in this town -- even the ones plying their trades in community theatre-land -- are smarter than to let egotistical buffoons trainwreck their shows.

"They do not seek to bring truth or integrity to their performance." Because we don't want the audience to believe us? And what about the director of the show? Did he not cast us because we showed some semblance of the truth that he and the audience are after?

"And they refuse to get far enough beyond their own fears to reach that point of connection." Is the Baron only watching high school theatre by night and Passions by day? I have seen many a fearless performance in this town. I have seen audiences weep openly at the connections they are experiencing. Is the Baron perhaps refusing to go beyond his own fears of connecting with the human beings he is watching? Or does the Baron only connect to ancient, translated Greek tragedy?

I would like to assert my belief that there are a lot of people doing theatre in this town for the sake of the art. Yes, some of them are doing it because they didn't get enough love in their childhoods. However, it is in my experience that, in the end, the love of the craft outweighs the love of the self. I've seen some amazing theatre in this town. Surely I'm not the only person who has been moved. Let me give a damn award to the people that moved me.

It was my experience that the KATC awards went undetected by Knoxville, other than the people nominated, as there were basically no other people in attendance. It was a party that usually held in attendance the nominees, the key figures of all the local theatres and artists. There really weren't many theatre viewers there ever that I could tell. If you were nominated, which I had been more than once, you were in control of how much meaning it had. I'd say that for most nominees that won, it became more important to them, and those who lost, brushed it off...after all it was just a KATC award. My point is that an award doesn't make someone a narcissist. They were either already that way or not.

The negative side of the KATCs in my opinion was the system of the awards. The panel could or wouldn't watch all the plays, so things got overlooked sometimes. Also, the votes were sometimes counted by nominees which seems sketchy to me. Also the manner in which people voted was sorta hard to keep fair. In other words people won sometimes that just plain didn't deserve it or at least not as much as others.

The positive side of the KATCs was that it was an annual meet and greet for all the theatre people in Knoxville, or at least a lot of them. It brought everyone together to celebrate the year in theatre, as well as form bonds with people you hadn't worked with.

In response to the argument of the awards being detrimental to the artistic integrity and blooming potential of theatre in Knoxville, I can only say that the awards would neither help nor harm the quality of the show themselves, or the quality of the artist that act in them, design them, direct them, or run them. It is a false argument. It can neither be proved or disproved, and it therefor lacks relevance. I do see the point that is being attempted and I do not disagree that there is often much left to be desired in the plays done here in Knoxville, TN. and I whole heartedly agree that theatre does have a function and porpose beyond entertainment. I also agree that a true actor has a great deal of responsibility. However, there is a reciprical sembience with the actor and audience that must also be considered. I saw it summed up once on a proscenium arch in a theatre in chicago. It read, "You yourself must light the torches which you have brought".

I think that this blog is a good thing and it is good to hear different views and opinions that are beginning to surface. It is important to respect and understand the perspectives of others, or we won't truely understand our own. However, i do reserve the right to chide one's delivery. "It is foolish to divide people as 'Good' or 'Bad', people are either charming or tedious." -Oscar Wilde

In closing, I would be in favor of an annual celebration of the year in Knoxville Theatre. if there are awards, so be it.

Yes, I know that The Baron made vast, sweeping, baseless generalizations about local actors & theatre, but I can't help taking his comments straight to my apparantly artless and fame-seeking heart.

After all, I have shared my stage with The Baron and often been on the receiving end of his now meaningless compliments. I have also heard him give praise to several other performers in our midst on more than one occasion. (As an egomaniacal actor/singer, I notice these things.)

What am I to do, then, with this new information about how he really feels about local actors--many of whom he calls his friends?

Is this a change of opinion, or has he always felt this way but told his friends otherwise?

Doesn't he realize that he's totally off the mark? None of us perform to satisfy our own needs--he should know that by now. Screw "ars gratia artis"!

I guess I thought it was obvious that we only go onstage to satisfy The Baron's needs!

Silly me...I'll try to make that more clear the next time The Baron wants to share the stage with me.

I will say that Dennis didn't seem to target local actors and theatres specifically, he took on the entire nation.

I don't have anything to say about that. Well, except this: theatre, generally, is an art that suffers in our country - and in most other places too. Yet that problem is a manifold one and so too is the source of the problem.

We can easily target actors, but we must not forget directors, producers, producing entities, and the economics of theatre (money, time, resources): all of which contribute to the many compromises that we have all made and in which we have all participated.

I suspect that the vitriol of the post in question was related to the timing of the primary question: should we resurrect the KATC and its eponymous awards?

While I can't and don't follow Dennis' reasoning, I do, at the moment, agree with his conclusion.

It's not that I think that a celebration of our efforts is a bad thing. On the contrary - I think it would be a great opportunity to promote our work and encourage us to better our production. Nevertheless, the idea is unmanageable.

To attain valdity, any such award process requires objectivity and consistency. It requires an unbiased pool of ajudicators who will see every production eligible for nomination and judge it on its individual merits.

The idea demands an independant body - otherwise, it retains the stink of cronyism, favoritism, popularity contest, and questionable judgement.

Oops - I think I just described the bulk of national awards shows. Still, even the Emmy changed its process this year. Nominations for major categories are referred to a panel that votes only after reviewing the nominated shows and episodes.

Of course, we don't have the advantage of video playback.

If the suggestion for a local award for theatre is made in earnest, the I suggest that we consider the way that the Joseph Jefferson awards are handled in Chicago. (DISCLAIMER: I have one of those awards - but I don't got no trophy as I had to share the award with an ensemble.)

I have to attend to my roasted tomatoes or else I would describe the process in deatil. In short, a panel of judges (selected for membership by interview - oral and written) sees every eligible show. They vote to recommend the show or not. If recommended, the larger body attends the show and, thus, all can cast informed votes when comes the time for final nominations and subsequent awards.

Without an honest and independant process, a local awards show would be meaningless at best and divisive at worst.

I don't have a terribly flexible work schedule. But I can certainly give a call and see what all's involved.

If I keep this volunteering stuff up I might go over my quota of plays. I can't go getting too cultured, now. I might develop a taut British accent and only drink out of cups that are sufficient enough to sport my pink finger up in the air.

Blog it, and they will bitch.

It's amazing how burned up people can get about a blog that twenty people view per day.

I thought it would take a bit longer than this, but the thank you, five backlash has begun. I've been criticized for not being hard-hitting enough in my reviews, even though I've made it clear when I haven't actually seen a show. And I've been chided for daring to mention the possibility of bringing back some sort of award show. Here's what I personally think of theatre awards in this town:

1. If brought back, an awards show would be an event where we could all come together and do the thing we all love to do: talk about theatre.

2. Believe it or not, theatre is a business. And while some of us want to work full-time jobs and do theatre as a hobby, some of us actually want to get paid for it. Being a theatre professional requires building a resume, and building a resume includes quoting reviewers, but shows in this town often don't get any ink. It also includes listing awards. Right now, unless you're an undergraduate at UT or in high school, there aren't any awards to speak of.

3. Yes, awards can be self-serving. So are resumes. So are myspace pages. If there is a way for the Knoxville community of theatre-goers to fairly thank the artists in this town for their work, it does everyone good. Theatre is for the masses. Let the masses tell us how we've done our job. Maybe we could then do better.

On a different tangent, I'm an actor. As much fun as it would be to rip everyone in this town a new asshole on some meaningless blog, it is, in the end, not my pervading style. It shouldn't be any actor's style. Actors shouldn't be professional, semi-professional, or part-time reviewers. It doesn't work. All I really wanted to do here was to create a forum for things to be discussed.

If you want to review shows in depth, please, be my guest. Please send me your name, a summary of your background in theatre, and a sample review to thankyoufive@gmail.com. It would be great to have other people's thoughts and views on this blog. Furthermore, if you have your own blog about Knoxville theatre you would like linked from this site, please send me your information and I will be happy to swap links. The more people that are talking about theatre, the better.

Oh, how heated people can get about the state of theatre in this town. Surely that's a good sign.

4 Comments:

I fully agree with needing some actual credentials to fill a resume, and I would be thrilled if there were some type of awards system here in town. For the amount of budding art/theatre groups around here I'm shocked that there no longer is.

Writers are fabulous pricks and if you became a fabulous prick I'd have to complain. That'd be stepping on my toes. You can be one or the other, buddy: a fabulous actor or a fabulous prick. (alright, in hollywood you can be both, but not in knoxville!!) Throw the ravenous writers a bone, right?

I think you're doing fabulous with this blog. You enlighten me with theatre. I never came here to be awed with edge gripping reviews. I came here to see what the effervescence was going on with Knoxville theatre. And lo and behold I found it, along with theatre resources in general. (actually, the original reason why I came here was because "oh, look! his blog! oh! look! theatre!" I never claimed to have a complex motive)

Eh, but what can I say about feedback? The fact that people are at odds with what you're saying or doing means they're paying attention. It also means they care enough to say something about it.

So yay theatre! Yay you! Yay me! Yay this bottle of Propel water! The world is sunny again!

When I'm at the point when I can look down at my resume and call it an actual "NY resume," it is more than likely that there will be no Knoxville awards listed on it. But I am not at that point. Would I put a Knoxville award on my resume for grad school? Yes. On a non-theatre job application? Yes. And would I hang it on my wall? Yep.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Urine Morristown

Morristown Theatre Guild's Urinetown opened this past Friday at Walters State CC, and continues through this weekend and the next. Shows are Friday and Saturday nights at 8, and Sunday afternoons at 2. Rate it if you saw it!

Undermining the general glee at the opening of a cool, fresh-from-Broadway musical in East Tennessee is the news that Micah-Shane Brewer is no longer the Artistic Director of the Theatre Guild. While no one expected such a talented guy to stay around these parts forever, no one anticipated a lazy accountant not realizing the Theatre Guild couldn't afford to cut its own AD a check halfway through the season. So, six months sooner that anyone wanted, Mr. Brewer now has his sights set on a bigger town.

Morristown's gonna miss ya, Micah-Shane. How is anyone going to fill his shoes?

1 Comments:

Sounds like a wonderful guy. Makes ya wonder why everything ends up going back to finances. You can't write a check of good intentions and promises. The bank won't cash it. Though they might point and laugh.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Review what you've seen!

In the future, I will post these when the shows actually open, instead of belatedly all-at-once. With any luck, these easy-breezy review polls will be only a precursor to a hip, all-inclusive, awards-enabling review system.

I offer polls for the three shows I've mentioned at all in-depth so far, plus one for Taming of the Shrew, which I unfortunately did not get to see.

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August round-up

Here's what's going on in Theatre-land this month:

Aug 4: Urinetown: The Musical opens at Morristown Theatre Guild. Some of my favorite Morristown performers are in it: Susan Christophel (Bat Boy's redneck citizen), Kayla Ricker (Sweeney's Mrs. Lovett), Destry Cloud (West Side's cutey-pie). There are gonna be a lot of Knoxville kids making the trip up to Mo-town for this one.

Aug 11: The Memory of Water at the Oak Ridge Playhouse. All I know about this production is that I get e-mails from ORP telling me to get my tickets now!! Is there a mad Oak Ridge rush to see dark comedies I'm unaware of? Maybe there's a mad rush to see Steve Beldingtopless.

Aug 24: Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love opens at the Black Box Theatre. Tony Cedeno, who has graced the CBT stage many a time over the years, is newly at the helm of this nudey-slasher. (My favorite all-time Tony performances? As Max in Bent and as the dentist in Little Shop.) Why should you see this show? One hyphenated word: carpet-munching.

Aug 24: Born Yesterday opens at the Clarence Brown Theatre. I still don't know anything about this one, but I'm sure it will be real pretty. I wonder who is directing this one. Calvin perhaps?

Meanwhile, at the CCP, performances of Cuckoo's Nest, Smoke on the Mountain (kill me), and Singin' in the Rain continue this month. Furthermore, why have you not seen Hedwig yet?